Times Topics: LABOR

In the United States, there are more than 150 million people in the labor force, a vast pool of workers that includes autoworkers and investment bankers, teachers and lumberjacks. The American labor force takes many forms: there are the traditional fulltime workers, but as employers have sought to create more flexible work forces, they have relied increasingly on part-time workers, temps and independent contractors. During the recession that ran from late 2007 into 2009, unemployment climbed to more than 15 million, with the jobless rate climbing to 10 percent and remaining above 9 percent throughout 2010.

About 16 million American workers are in labor unions, although the percentage of workers who are unionized has dropped fairly steadily in recent decades. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12.4 percent of the American work force belonged to a union in 2008, down from 35 percent in the 1950s. The percentage of workers in unions has dropped as companies have closed many unionized operations and moved them overseas and as many employers have grown more sophisticated in beating back unionization efforts. Moreover, as the American work force has grown more prosperous in the decades of World War II, many workers concluded that they did not need a union to represent them.

The main umbrella group representing the nation’s unionized workers is the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (A.F.L.-C.I.O.), a grouping of 56 unions that claims 11 million members. The other main labor group is the Change to Win federation, comprised of seven unions that say they represent more than 5 million workers. The nation’s largest labor union is the National Education Association, with more than 3 million members, and the second largest is the Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly 2 million workers, many of them health-care and building-service workers.

The United States has a web of laws regulating the workplace. In the laissez-faire years of the 19^th century and early 20^th century, the nation’s workplace laws were quite weak. But with the Great Depression causing widespread unemployment and suffering among workers and with labor unions gathering strength, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal Congress enacted important protections for the nation’s workers. The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, setting a nationwide minimum wage and requiring time-and-a-half pay for non-salaried, non-supervisory employees who work more than 40 hours in a week. The National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, was passed in 1936, giving the nation’s private-sector workers a federally protected right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. As soon as a majority of employees at a workplace vote for a union, the employer is generally required to grant union recognition and work to negotiate a contract. The most important labor legislation enacted since World War II was the Occupational Health and Safety Act, passed in 1970, which created a federal occupational safety agency and created safety requirements for the nation’s employers.

Other labor protections include the Social Security Act, which guarantees minimum monthly payments to millions of retirees and disabled workers, and the Family Medical Leave Act, which guarantees workers up to 12 unpaid weeks off work to take care of themselves of family members in case of illness. The individual states have workers’ compensation laws that assist workers injured on the job by providing them with medical care and indemnity benefits.

(The New York Times, January 4, 2011)

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